Antisemitism in Modern Society

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman).

One of the most poignant sayings is that history has a habit of repeating itself. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) put it in excellent terms this afternoon—that history tells us where all this will lead. Whether it was in the holocaust, or whether it was other genocides that followed, in which people of different faiths and from different communities have been tortured and murdered, whether it was in Rwanda, whether it was the Rohingya, the Yazidis, or in Srebrenica—all followed a similar pattern before genocide and holocaust took place. The warning signs are there long before the action happens.

Antisemitism was clearly evident long before the holocaust in which 6 million Jews were executed. Looking at the parallels between then and now, there are some disturbing similarities. Only a few weeks ago, as the Secretary of State said, many of us were signing the book of remembrance for Holocaust Memorial Day, promising that we would speak out if we saw those patterns of behaviour emerging in our society. That is part of the purpose of today’s debate. It is important not to sit silently by, not calling such behaviour out.

At the time in 1933 when Hitler took over as Chancellor, few saw that the creeping antisemitism would lead to the murder of 6 million Jews. Look at the building blocks that were put in place to get to that stage. A man got into power—a man that, in 1919 when he joined the German Workers’ party, many thought a political lightweight that would never lead the party. But he got into power, promising the masses, in the time of austerity following the first world war, that he would end austerity. Hitler denounced international capitalism; he said he would install a new order to dismantle the broken politics of that generation. He promised increased public spending to build more hospitals, schools, roads. He would curb big business and end capitalism. He had sidelined traditional trade unions and established his own new group, the Labour Front. He set up a youth wing to indoctrinate the next generation so it would follow his values and beliefs. They were often found chanting at popular events such as the Olympics.

Hitler changed the rules in his own party, so that people could not challenge him and get rid of him. He got rid of the moderates in his own party, using the Enabling Act, so that no one could speak out, and if they were afraid, they were gone in an instant. He ended the freedom of the press, and it was after he got into power that the antisemitism was really ramped up. Anyone looking at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website should listen to the testimony of someone like Hedi Pope, whose parents lived through that. She said they were Jewish, but they dismissed some of the changes; they thought they would never last—he would be gone in a few years, and things would return to normal. But they never did.

After 1933, the Jews were dismissed from the civil service. People were told to boycott Jewish goods. They could not attend schools. They could not go to public areas, such as cinemas. There was the physical destruction that we have heard so much about this afternoon—of synagogues, Jewish homes, places of business. In 1938, Jews started to leave, but for many of them it was too late.

At Prime Minister’s Question Time this afternoon, I spoke about Anne Meadows, a councillor—a Labour councillor—since 1994. I know Anne because I was a Conservative councillor with her in the ward of Moulsecoomb and Bevendean—I was the first Conservative councillor there for 20 years. Anne is a fierce, patriotic Labour woman. You did not mess with Anne. I found that to my cost when I was a fellow councillor. To see a woman like that having to leave the Labour party because of antisemitism against her husband is absolutely shocking. What did her local Labour MP tweet today? That this was nothing more than a bare-faced career move by Anne. There was no sympathy for the plight of Anne and her husband. That tells us where we are today. If we think that antisemitism is something that happened in the past and could never escalate to the same levels, we are fooling ourselves and denying what has happened. There is antisemitism today, and as we remember the lives that were lost in the holocaust and previous genocides, we are confronted with a question—what would we have done? Would we have prevented what happened then? Will we have a chance now, because history tells us that if we do not take it we know where this will end?